


the shadows start to fall

by laireshi



Category: Marvel Ultimates
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, Technobabble, Twincest, kinda fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>That plan is shot when he finds a trace of a code that is somehow known to him and almost alien at once, and absolutely </i>enchanting<i>, and Tony forgets about everything else.</i></p><p>Or: where Tony tried to relax, and found Greg instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the shadows start to fall

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Ultimate Avengers vs Ultimates and Ultimate Comics Ultimates up to the latest issue.
> 
> It's a fix-it in a way, I guess, of the current Ult Tony canon.
> 
> As in the tags - it contains twincest. Yes.  
> It's an experiment of sorts for me. I've never tried to write something like that before. It made for a nice break from Steve/Tony BB, too.
> 
> (I blame technobabble on having to sit through one Assembler 101 lecture too many)
> 
> the title's from Digital by Joy Division (aka the band that you don't want to listen to if you don't want to cry)

When all is said and done, when Kang is defeated and Reed put away again (hopefully for good this time), when Banner is neutralised and Quicksilver doesn't even try to run away from cuffs; when Tony secures his body in a cryogenic chamber and lets himself mourn Anthony (even if he would never admit to it, because he, no, it was just a tumour -- no, an Infinity Gem, for god's sake, he wasn't even _alive_ , but thinking of him still has to be easier when he's thinking in zeroes and ones and can't get drunk with the intention of forgetting only to remember and feel all the more, and it's not as if there's still enough good alcohol for him to get drunk on) -- when all this is done, Tony closes himself in an empty room with a computer console. He powers the armour off and concentrates all his thoughts, or maybe it's processes now, and accesses all the remaining Stark servers, mainly back-ups and personal ones, those that he didn't need in order to operate his armoury before and therefore didn't look at, but now he looks - for what, he doesn't know. He knows he wants to take a look at what's left of medical R&D files, wants to check if his nanites can heal the damage Reed dealt his body (the armour is great. It doesn't mean he wants to spend the rest of his life in it), he wants to see how to help Clint, but right now – right now, he just immerses himself into the servers and lets himself just drift, not think.

That plan is shot when he finds a trace of a code that is somehow known to him and almost alien at once, and _absolutely_ enchanting, and Tony forgets about everything else.

He chases the code through half-working firewalls and security systems, amused, because let's be real, he's designed them. Even if they are trying to keep him out now, as in a way he is a program too, nowadays, he also thinks just as fast as the computer does and passes them with barely any effort. The program, whatever it is, which sent that piece of code - it doesn't have any chances of hiding.

Tony stops dead when he catches up, his processes halting at once, waiting, because -- it's impossible, and yet, and yet; he knows what he sees, feels, touches, but it's so utterly impossible --

"Hello, little brother," the sensation of Gregory's voice sounds in the cyberspace between them.

"How," he thinks and/or says; there's really not a lot of difference here and he should get more alert now, because Gregory surely already has and will let nothing slip, because Greg was always the ruthless one out of them two.

"Indeed, Tony," Gregory answers him and there's a sensation of a smirk accompanying the words. "But I'll cut you some slack just this once. You're younger, you may take longer to adapt," he finishes, generously, all smug and full of himself even if technically non-existent.

"If I am non-existent, Tony, then so are you." Gregory's words are sharp, it's seems as if he tuts, "and I told you to adapt."

Greg's functions surround him, closely, intimately, and Tony stops thinking for a moment, makes a mental countdown of the processes that now create him, divides in and out procedures and protocols, private classes and protected classes, and public classes just for the most necessary systems, and makes sure there's no default inheritance, never (though they are twins, their base code should be the same, how does it even work, are there even two of them anymore?)...

"Good ques..." Gregory starts saying and stops, irritation flashes from him. He doesn't finish the sentence, because he doesn't know how he was going to finish it, because he doesn't have the access to Tony's private interfaces anymore. Because they are two separate people now, when a moment before it was as if they would have never been again.

 _Was that what broke them apart, ages ago?_ , Tony thinks. Was it finding a world apart from the two of them that didn't revolt around the second person? Was that it or the stupid competition and pride and the game of one-upping each other they've started out of boredom and spite, or was it all those hurt feelings and broken pride neither of them would have acknowledged? _Doesn't matter now_ , Tony decides. It doesn't matter, because it was in the past and what's done is done and may hurt, but is a closed chapter (if only he ever really learnt that); and he and Gregory aren't one person, never have been; the tales of twins as two bodies sharing one soul notwithstanding.

"Let's say you did cut me a slack indeed, brother dear," Tony drawls lazily, his intentions, words and feelings translated to a more basic code, then processor interrupts, to binary code and back again for Gregory's software. It's not quite like talking, when their expressions and voices speak all the louder, all the more honest, not quite like texting, with words and only words to their disposition to lie (not that Gregory ever stooped to texting: calligraphed letters were more to his taste); maybe like telepathy, except none of them have ever felt that to compare. What he said, he did to make Gregory feel better -- he used to sacrifice much more than a momentary pride for that. He never quite succeeded.

"Indeed, Tony," Gregory replies, and his tone is sharp and tight, and Tony could easily picture his expression if he tried, the lip curled in disdain, eyes narrowed... He could, but he doesn't.

"So how are you still alive? Same as me, I guess, but I know I didn't upload your brainwaves to a Stark mainframe," Tony says finally, in as much of a normal dialogue as they could ever have, as they can have now.

"You didn't honestly believe that I didn't have a plan in place, Tony," Gregory replies and there's a definite tone of superiority in his not-quite-voice now.

"I buried you," the words escape Tony's lips unbidden, and he should work on his own firewalls more, now that he has a chance to improve his ever non-existent brain-to-mouth filter, except he doesn't want to do that either. Gregory was dead, and Tony, Tony should have died with him. Twins shouldn't outlive one another.

"I know," Gregory replies, and if Tony didn't know better, he'd say there was softness in his voice, but that would be ridiculous. Gregory hasn't spoken with softness since he was five and their mother died. "I saw you mourn," he continues. "You were actually sad. That was almost touching, Tony."

"Was it now," Tony says, and fears he didn't quite manage to suppress the silly happiness in his voice. Wariness, too: he knows what Gregory's capable of, knows that better than anyone, but here, in this space that's not quite the real world but nonetheless real for it, here he can admit he missed his brother. Because they were twins, and therefore tied together, and that was both stupid and sentimental and probably a lie. "Anyway, darling," he adds, "you'd mourn, too, don't lie now.” He stops for a second; and it's eternity where they are now. “Would you wear black for me, Gregory?" he asks, curious.

He feels a sudden hesitation emanating off his brother's not quite secured output procedures, and understands: is it hate or is it love, you really can't fake emotionless disinterest about the person that makes you feel like that. And they never quite managed to separate love from hate, anyway.

"Let me show you something, brother," Gregory replies after he gets his feelings (functions) under complete control and no doubts improves his own firewalls, and then he's running through the servers again, ignoring file after file after uncorrupted file - Tony's surprised there are still so many of them - until they're in a folder on the one of Stark Global Solutions servers that Tony isn't sure why it is even connected to his network. It may explain how Greg survived, at least, if 'survival' is the word now.

He doesn't dwell on that, instead looks at what Gregory is showing him, he downloads the new data and there are blueprints after schematics after calculations, and it's impossible, and it all adds up, and --

Tony feels something in the physical world tugging him back; maybe the Ultimates need his help again and wrote a program to catch his attention, he wouldn't put it past them, but it feels different... He has to check it anyway, because he won't leave his world alone, not even for Gregory (after all, he already didn't, once, and he lost him and never really stopped mourning him; what could be worse?), so he catches the line of code and lets himself be pulled back to the armour waiting for him, where he can securely unravel his coding as if in his own body --

 _As if in his own body_.

He blinks, feels blood pumping in his veins, he's pretty sure he's breathing... He raises his hand and it moves smoothly, immediately, softly, not at all like the Iron Man armour -- he looks at his fingers, flexing, touches them to his scalp, feels a scar there, but not a memory of pain.

He sits up and then stands and almost falls down, because there, on the other side of the room, Gregory Stark is standing up, his body, once charred to the bone by Thor's electric bolt, unharmed again, beautiful -- of course beautiful, they are twins, and Tony knows exactly how attractive he is -- whole, and it's impossible.

"So, little brother," Gregory says in his normal, slightly condescending tone, "I didn't spent my not-so-alive days for nothing. This body is even better than my first one. I'm almost sorry I dumped you back into the original of yours, but it was easy to repair, and you've always been so sentimental."

Tony looks at his own body again, and yeah, it is his body, there are scars he knows on it. He smiles what he knows is his most charming smile.

"And I'm the sentimental one, dear?" He shakes his head. "Then why did you bring me back along, Gregory?"

Gregory snarls momentarily, and then calms himself and puts on a smile as charming as the one Tony has, only more dangerous, more lethal. "Why, little brother," he starts, approaching Tony in a few long steps, "I'm making you a favour. To let Richards kill you, such a bad taste," and he shakes his head. “At least I was killed by a god.”

Tony catches him by his arms and pulls him in for a kiss, fierce and sharp and not first, definitely not first; ages of meetings for sex, drenched in alcohol and covered with smoke, between them, but this time, this time feels different, because this time they don't start with fighting.

Gregory kisses him back with equal force and Tony laughs, because when they finish, they'll definitely be fighting each other, again, and it's definitely not what the world that Kang has tried and failed to heal needs right now, but maybe it is what Tony needs.


End file.
